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Posted Mar 24, 2010, 12:42 PM
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Honored Member
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Toronto area (ex-Nova Scotian)
Posts: 5,558
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Another Save our View story, this time pretending to be in favour of a convention centre ( http://thechronicleherald.ca/Opinion/1173690.html ). I am becoming more and more convinced that this is one more project that is going to be scuttled, this time in order to save a view of the Dartmouth refinery.
Quote:
We need a new convention centre
By ALLAN LYNCH
Wed. Mar 24 - 4:53 AM
The last few weeks have seen a number of people who aren’t familiar with the Canadian meetings industry comment on the economics of a new convention centre for Halifax.
For the last 18 years, I’ve written about this industry for magazines in Canada and the United States. In Canada, this industry spends in excess of $9 billion a year.
In the last two years, because of the United States’ wonky economics, the industry has taken a hit and been unfairly disparaged by people who really don’t know what’s going on.
In the industry, it’s known as the AIG effect, based on the poor optics of insurance executives filmed at corporate functions after receiving taxpayer bailouts. What no one explained was that these events were contracted for long before the economy soured and would have to be paid for whether or not anyone attended.
An example of this impact occurred last January, when a national conference in Vancouver was cancelled. The conference price tag was $1.5 million, but the cancellation penalties amounted to $1.2 million. That would seem like a $300,000 savings. It wasn’t. The company still had to get their diverse sales force together, so one meeting was replaced by a series of four regional meetings, which meant paying for more travel, more meetings space, and having key people away from the office for longer periods. It was a false economy.
In Ralph Surette’s March 13th column in the Herald, he quoted Heywood Saunders, a professor of urban planning at the University of Texas, who asked why Halifax would succeed in this business when other destinations are suffering, and why businesses would choose Halifax over Ottawa, Niagara Falls and other destinations.
Valid questions. But what the professor doesn’t seem to know is the nature of the Canadian association market. Whatever the economic temperature, associations still have to meet. And Canada is rich in associations. Over 600 have head offices in Ottawa. To be democratic to their membership, these associations rotate their business across Canada. In any one year a destination can be bidding to win a share of 120 to 150 events. I’ve spoken to planners who have booked their meeting space for 2013, 2016 and are trying to nail down 2018. This is an industry that takes the long view to business.
Sadly for Halifax, a number of these groups have outgrown our venues and find themselves unwillingly limited to meeting in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. They want to go to other cities, but can’t.
Back when there was still a Reform Party of Canada, their corporate planner considered Halifax for their national convention. While the World Trade Centre had space for their formal meetings, there was no space capable of hosting their meals. Meals would have to held in the same ballroom as the business meetings. That meant losing several hours each day, and thousands of dollars in additional costs, to constantly tear down and set up the room.
Time is money, and groups want a seamless transition between functions. They can’t unleash 2,000 delegates into downtown Halifax at lunch time and expect everyone back in an hour for work. It has to be done in-house.
As for why a group would choose Halifax? Well, we used to have statistics proving that attendance was five-to-six-per-cent higher in coastal cities like Halifax or Vancouver. The seaside has more appeal for landlocked delegates than yet another business trip to the cement canyons of downtown Toronto.
The professor made reference to the decline in business in places like Las Vegas. Even with a decline, Vegas welcomed over a million conference goers last year. But Vegas’ problems are unique to it: it has a frivolous reputation in austere times; the new U.S. president made disparaging remarks (since withdrawn) about the city which frightened groups away; and the airline industry reduced the number of flights servicing the city by 15 per cent (in 2009 there were 369,767 fewer airline seats flying into that market).
As for those who believe the future is in cyber meetings, this technology has been around for 15 years and not caught on. It works for a short, tightly managed, in-house meeting, but doesn’t allow for productive networking and sales that come from face-to-face meetings. Nor does it build client relationships which are vital for business.
If face-to-face wasn’t important, there would be no need for G8 meetings or the Davos World Economic Forum which attracts 27 heads of state and 1,000 CEOs.
The Canadian economy is much different from the American economy and our industry is different from theirs. While we have suffered, it’s mostly been the hiccup effect of what has happened south of the border. American groups are now looking at ROI, return on investment, for their meetings. That’s been the driving force for Canadians for over a decade.
Do we need a new convention centre? Yes. Do we need one with a hotel and office towers attached? I don’t know.
I am one of those who worry about losing the view from the Citadel. I think most Nova Scotians assume they know what the view looks like these days, but how many Haligonians and city councillors have been to the Citadel in the last five years? Before we agree to lose what’s left of the view, I think people should take another look. It would be ironic to lose something that is a major draw to those we are trying to bring to the city.
We also need to talk about what will happen to the World Trade Centre. Will it remain or be declared surplus? If it is to be junked, couldn’t we use it for more hotel rooms (The Radisson was once an office building) or more office space? A tower in Scotia Square is about to come free with Nova Scotia Power’s move to the waterfront. And another developer is building a high rise in Historic Properties. Do we need more office space downtown?
In the 1960s and ’70s, conventional wisdom said we needed to be more like the rest of North America. The plan was to demolish derelict waterfront buildings, later to become Historic Properties, to build a four-lane highway along the waterfront to the container terminal, which is why we have the overpass to nowhere between the Delta Halifax and Trade Mart. The city would have been segregated from the water. What would Halifax look like had that happened? Would we have become a draw for cruise ships? Would we have the boardwalk or Maritime Museum? Could we have hosted the tall ships, this year’s naval review, or have space for the busker’s festival?
Convention centres in Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto, London, Paris and other cities operate successfully by feeding business to their neighbours. If public money is to go into a new convention centre, then the public interest has to be accommodated in the business plan.
We need to take a breath and learn how to marry modern with ancient so we can keep what is authentic, unique and instills an interest in both corporate and individual visitors.
‘I am one of those who worry about losing the view from the Citadel. I think most Nova Scotians assume they know what the view looks like these days, but how many Haligonians and city councillors have been to the Citadel in the last five years? Before we agree to lose what’s left of the view, I think people should take another look.’
Allan Lynch has spent 18 years writing about the meetings and incentive industry for magazines in Canada and the United States.
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Last edited by fenwick16; Mar 24, 2010 at 1:04 PM.
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